Twitter Seen Valued at $10 Billion Based on GSV Holding

By Ari Levy and Douglas MacMillan -
May 11, 2013

Twitter Inc. was valued at almost $10
billion by one of its investors, up about 10 percent from a
previous estimate, indicating shares are appreciating ahead of a
possible initial public offering for the microblogging service.

GSV Capital Corp. (GSVC) owns 1.9 million shares of Twitter valued
at $35.2 million, or about $18.50 a share, the firm said in a
May 8 filing. Based on a fully diluted share count of almost 530
million, that makes the company worth about $9.8 billion.

Twitter is becoming more valuable as the San Francisco-based social website boosts revenue from advertising and moves
closer to a predicted IPO. In January, Twitter was valued at
about $9 billion when a fund managed by BlackRock Inc. (BLK) bought
stock from employees, up from the $8 billion valuation in a 2011
investment round led by DST Global, people with knowledge of the
matter have said.

GSV, based in Woodside, California, is a publicly traded
investment fund that primarily buys shares of closely held
technology companies on the secondary markets. The firm first
sold shares to the public in April 2011.

The fund reported total assets of $245.4 million at the end
of March, and Twitter is the biggest holding, accounting for 14
percent of assets, GSV said in the filing. That includes $34
million of common stock and $1.2 million of preferred shares.
The next-biggest holdings are Palantir Technologies Inc.,
Dropbox Inc. and Chegg Inc.

Twitter, founded in 2006, is offering new forms of
advertisements and expanding to international markets in its bid
to reach $1 billion in revenue in 2014.

While Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo has said that
management isn’t concentrating on an IPO, Twitter is widely
predicted to hold a share sale before long to help it bankroll
expansion, and give early investors a way to realize financial
gains on their holdings.